Did You And Your Partner Become Roommates?

Did You And Your Partner Become Roommates Where did all the sex go? As a counselor who works with couples who are experiencing relationship challenges, one of the most common issues that couples bring in to the counseling setting is a lack of sex in their union, which also may also be leading one or both partners to explore separation. First, let me say that from the point of view of a counselor, how much respect I have for my clients upon disclosing such a personal item. For some who disclose, I notice an initial relief in being able to state the truth openly, then there are also times that one or both in the couple may experience and report feelings of shame and anger that follow the disclosure. For many couples, being sexual with each other signifies that they are successful, and when they are no longer experiencing intimacy then they equate this with failure.

How did they get there? Some of these couples convey to me during a couples or individual counseling session that they once were very amorous, and had satisfying intimate experiences at one time. So how do couples that were once passionate, so much so that in some cases they planned an expensive and elaborate ceremony to signify their love and devotion to each other, become roommates? What seems to come across loud and clear in my office from my clients is that they have at some point either knowingly or unknowingly stopped cherishing their mate. According to the dictionary, to cherish means to, “treat with affection and tenderness; hold dear”. How many couples out there are actually treating their partner with tenderness and affection on a regular basis? Also, how does one cherish their mate when they have anger, resentment and/or disgust for them?

Is our partner responsible for our happiness? Quite often, clients attempt to make their partner responsible for their own happiness. For many in couples counseling, entering into individual counseling is a powerful experience to begin to transcend their own “stuff” which is preventing them from enjoying a satisfying relationship with their mate, or seeing that their mate is being emotionally/physically abusive, cheating, or has emotionally detached from the relationship. In addition, an individual’s own mind-body connection plays an important role in determining what level of friction they can tolerate in their relationships. What I mean by this is that if someone is very anxious, depressed and/or stressed out, they are not in a position to give the necessary self-care to themselves, never mind their mates.

How can you make subtle shifts in your relationship? It’s simultaneously both difficult and simple to effect change; a key ingredient needs to be that both partners have a willingness to make changes. Small shifts that each partner can make can result in improved relational and intimate outcomes, such as making a hot cup of tea or cocoa and bringing it to your loved one, putting a thoughtful card where they can find it, saying “thank you” or “I’m sorry”, when it’s appropriate, or just actively listening to what your partner is saying. Honestly engaging your mate with no other distractions begins to set a tone of prioritization and importance, and that you are interested in them at a core level. All of the aforementioned ways are just some examples of levels of intimacy that collectively amass to cherishing one’s mate.

Isn’t intimacy and sex the same thing? Intimacy redefined begins to look at all the day to day interactions that we have with each other, and suffice it to say that couples who take advantage of such opportunities to do kind gestures for themselves and for their mates are much more likely to report having intimate moments. Carving out time to cherish another sometimes means being firm and saying no to our kids, our families, friends, work and shutting off the blackberry to re-connect with our mate.

For more information Kelley Hopkins-Alvarez, NCC, MS, MSEd at 203-948-0938; call today for a free confidential telephone consultation, and visit the website at www.KelleyHopkinsAlvarez.com